--- product_id: 6031748 title: "LITTLE, BROWN Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America" price: "$85.65" currency: USD in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.us/products/6031748-little-brown-stokes-field-guide-to-the-birds-of-north store_origin: US region: United States of America --- # 600+ bird calls on bonus CD 3,400+ vivid bird photos Detailed range & migration maps LITTLE, BROWN Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America **Price:** $85.65 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Summary > 🦅 Elevate your birding IQ with the ultimate North American avian bible! ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** LITTLE, BROWN Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America - **How much does it cost?** $85.65 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.us](https://www.desertcart.us/products/6031748-little-brown-stokes-field-guide-to-the-birds-of-north) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Key Features - • **Bonus Audio Experience:** Includes a downloadable CD with 600+ authentic bird sounds to train your ear and elevate your birding game. - • **Expert Behavioral Insights:** Special focus on bird shape, behavior, songs, and calls to sharpen your field skills. - • **Portable Yet Authoritative:** A hefty 3-pound powerhouse that fits in your bag, blending field usability with deep reference value. - • **Comprehensive Range Mapping:** Up-to-date winter, summer, year-round, and migration maps right alongside each species. - • **Unrivaled Visual Identification:** Over 3,400 stunning color photos covering all plumages and flight views for precise bird ID. ## Overview The LITTLE, BROWN Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America is a definitive, photo-rich reference featuring 853 species, detailed range maps, behavioral notes, and a bonus audio CD with over 600 bird calls. Authored by renowned birders Don and Lillian Stokes, this guide balances comprehensive scientific accuracy with practical field usability, making it an essential tool for serious birdwatchers seeking to master identification and deepen their connection to North America's diverse birdlife. ## Description Reflecting years of research and observation of North American birds, the Stokes Field Guide includes more species, photos and useful identification information for birdwatchers than any other guide. The guide features 853 North American bird species and more than 3,400 stunning color photographs. And yet it's portable enough to fit in your pocket! The photographs cover all significant plumages, including male, female, summer, winter, immature, morphs, important subspecies, and birds in flight. Also included: The newest scientific and common names and phylogenetic order Special help for identifying birds in flight through important clues of behavior, plumage, and shape Detailed descriptions of songs and calls Important behavioral information Key habitat preferences of each species The newest range maps, detailing species' winter, summer, year-round ranges, and migration routes A special downloadable CD with more than 600 bird sounds (from Lang Elliott and Kevin Colver) and 150 photographs of common North American species. Review: I HAVE BEEN AND AM DELIGHTED WITH THIS BOOK...What a wonderful resource which has added much to my enjoyment of birding - I collect bird books with particular emphasis on field guides and have been doing so since the late 1950s. I have also been birding since even before the "book thing," as my wife calls it. Truth be told, I get almost as much satisfaction over my bird book collecting as I do over the actually birding...not as much mind you, but pretty close! I share this with you because like a couple of other reviewers here, it takes quite a bit to truly impress me at this point in my life. I have to tell you that the "wow factor," for me, is off the charts with this current offering from the Stokes. Now don't get me wrong. I dearly love every one of my field guides, even the old musty ones dating back to the turn of the century which were void of any illustrations and consisted of only rambling post-Victorian text. But for sheer usability this new Stokes ranks right up at the top. But read on..... Now before I go on, the old question of "if you had only one field guide, and only one, which one would you choose - which one is the best?" Oh my! This argument has been going on since as long as I can remember. I have birded with a lot of people from literally all over the world, and when asked that question, I have received dozens upon dozens of answers. Bird field guides are a lot like golf clubs. Everyone has their favorite and folks will go to the matt arguing which is best. When all is said and done though, it all depend upon the individual; what they are use to using, how he perceive birding, what their experience level is, what their dad or mom told them, and on and on and on. From my own experiences and from my own point of view, I would be hard pressed to try to identify a single "best guide." I personally use several of them in the field and even more of them as references. As an example, I grew up using the Peterson guides. I still use them as my primary source. Hey, they are what I am use to. Since those early days though I have added Sibley's guides, and of course Audubon...these are the three guides I carry in the field. I have now added this Stokes to my tote bag; or at least to my stash in my car. The Stokes Filed Guide to the Birds of North America has some of the best photographs of birds I have seen in any guide book. Each bird represented has several shots; perching or standing, flying and of course gender and in most cases, maturity. The photographs are clear and concise and the color is wonderful. Range maps, unlike the Peterson guide, are on the same page as the bird. For "difficult" birds, there are nice little side-bar notes which include identification tips. I personally found the organization of the book, once I use it and got use to it, to be quite workable. The authors have given enough text to allow identification but by necessity have kept the text to a minimum. I personally like this. If I want the life history or life cycle of the book I have plenty of reference books in by library and I have a computer which allows me to do further research once I have identified a given bird. In a field guide I simply do not want a cluttered and detailed text...too much reading in the woods causes a person to miss a lot of birds! Now much as been said and written about the size and weight of this work and rightfully so as a person needs to know what they are getting before they decide to make a purchase, i.e. is it right for me? In my personal case, yes it is right. I do a lot of my birding from fixed positions (I am old and can no longer trek 20 miles a day...bummer) and I also do a lot of "roadside" birding. Yes, I am more stationary now but if you ask me if I would have carried this guide with me when I was younger, my answer would have been yes. Weight did not mean that much to me then as it does now. As it stands, I have been blessed with the ability to take very good field notes. This is not, I can assure you, because I am particularly bright, no - it is because I have been doing it for so long that I was bound to get good at it through sheer repetition. I can use my Peterson and Sibley on difficult birds and record enough data to make a good identification later using my full resources. This book contains a bonus CD of over 600 bird calls our sounds. This is nice and is very useful. In my case it is not as useful as it would be for most folks as I have a tin ear when it comes to music - hey, I have trouble distinguishing between the music of Jimmy Hendrix and a Celtic Flutist...but it is a good CD anyway! This work was a great addition to my library and has been a great help with my birding. What a wonderful resource this book is. This one works for me. Don Blankenship The Ozarks Review: The best bird guide 50 years, But For Portability, the iBird2 App is Better - December 30, 2011: I still have 17 bird guides from Sibley to Nat'l Geographic, and the only one I've been using for 10 months is this one. Yes, I still have a problem that the Western Region is still given "short shrift" - even in their Western Region book - but compared to the other 16, this is by far the best guide with the best/most photographs, and I've now come to understand much more about birding behavior so I can find birds on my own. HOWEVER, my kids gave me a Kindle Fire for my birthday last week, and I found an APP, iBird Pro 2 on desertcart that is, unbelievably, EVEN BETTER THAN this Stokes and it's portable! This does not take away from the work that went into this remarkable Field Guide. But at 3 pounds, "field guide" is really a misnomer. Stokes is really a reference book, and excellent reference book. March 23, 2011: After using the book for a month, there are a couple of disturbing "findings." It may be my imagination, but I think that the Stokes pay more attention to the Eastern North American birds than those west of the Rockies (note: I didn't say "Mississippi"). Two birds which I recently photographed are not represented correctly in this book. The Oak Titmouse is NOT the Common Titmouse, and there should be two separate pages for the Oak and Juniper Titmice. And - so far - they do not present the Common Grackle or Boat-tailed Grackle as living in the West while I have photographed them in the east counties of the San Francisco Bay Area. Now, I'm beginning to wonder what other species got short shrift. Having seen many of the Stokes' TV shows, they do indeed give more emphasis to Eastern birds. I don't blame them or even fault them. If I lived in New Hampshire, the last thing on my mind would be the Acorn Woodpecker or California Quail. But they DO present these birds, and do that well. (I have 24 bird guides - going back to 1964 - and none mentions the red spot on the yellow bib of the female Acorn Woodpecker. At least Stokes give more attention to the yellow bib.) I have accumulated (not consciously collected) 28 books on birds, at least 14 of them "field guides." Well, the Stokes' Birds of North America is too large to really be a field guide unless you have a Range Rover to cover your fields and a Guide to carry this book, but IT IS in the top 3 guides. Being that thorough, however, you will have a 3 pound book (I just weighed it: 3 pounds on the button). Though I rarely leave the west coast any more, I bought this to get a better idea as to ranges and the differences between Western and Eastern North American birds. The Stokes have given us over 700 birds and from three to eight really good photos of each. The more difficult the species is to distinguish from subspecies, the more photographs. So sparrows, for instance, will rate more photos than a Band-tailed Pigeon. There are quite a few of the birds in flight which is also especially helpful with raptors. Each species has notes as to subspecies and hybrids. Now, I know that male mallards will have sex with anything that floats, but I had no idea that there are 15 hybrids! Even the wood duck could be an offshoot of the promiscuous (and ill-mannered I might add) mallard. Most "birders" like Sibley's guide, and I used that for a while for easy identification. However, there are no photographs, just phenomenal drawings. Then I switched to Smithsonian which has great photographs, and pretty good maps as well as an audio CD (as does Stokes)of bird songs. And then I switched to Stokes' Western Region Guide. To be honest, I find all of these too heavy to carry while walking, and I find all software for phones and iPads that I don't have to be less than satisfactory. Much less. Really bad in fact since even the comparisons are poor. But, since I'm only REALLY interested in birds that are either so striking that I won't forget details or birds that I've just photographed and have to download to my PC anyway, this Stokes' book is the ticket to identify the species and learn as much as I want to learn. I probably will never be able to tell the difference between a chipping sparrow and a savanna sparrow, but that's okay. Only the shipping sparrow lives around here. And there are enough critics of my nature photography web site so that somewhere down the line, somebody will tell me where I've misidentified a bird. I'm thankful for that. I'm also very patient and can wait. I was about to write that I really didn't care about the audio CD, just as I didn't care for Smithsonian's. That's not entirely true, and it brings us back to the sparrow. I CAN distinguish differences in bird songs; I just can tell which thrush or sparrow it came from. Around here, sparrows get together for socializing and maybe even a hand of bridge, and they don't mind singing up a storm regardless of the competition with others. The only one I know for sure is the Song Sparrow. So, every once in a while I will put the CD in and see if I can hear the difference between the Golden-crowned and the White-crowned. Sure, so long as I have the CD. But once out in the field... well, let's just say I've never been good with languages. Besides, almost all sparrows have a very sweet song, though none can compete with the Song Sparrow. Would I recommend this book? In a heartbeat. But I'm guess it weighs well over a pound, so keep it home. The only thing I want now is for the Stokes to come out with the same one in hardbound. Note: With Christmas coming up, I will be giving this to several friends who, though members of the local Audubon Society, will find this one of the best REFERENCE books. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that I'd buy a Kindle if this book was available WITH the songs. ## Features - Fantastic field guide for birds found commonly throughout North America - Includes range maps, color photos, and common behaviors of each bird - Has informtion on differntiating different bird species, and plenty of identification help - Special emphasis placed on identifying birds by shape - Written by preeminient birders Don and Lillian Stokes ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #103,453 in Patio, Lawn & Garden ( See Top 100 in Patio, Lawn & Garden ) #120 in Ornithology (Books) #308 in Biology of Wildlife #479 in Bird Watching (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.8 out of 5 stars 987 Reviews | ## Images ![LITTLE, BROWN Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71AtrNsEV4L.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I HAVE BEEN AND AM DELIGHTED WITH THIS BOOK...What a wonderful resource which has added much to my enjoyment of birding *by D***P on June 17, 2012* I collect bird books with particular emphasis on field guides and have been doing so since the late 1950s. I have also been birding since even before the "book thing," as my wife calls it. Truth be told, I get almost as much satisfaction over my bird book collecting as I do over the actually birding...not as much mind you, but pretty close! I share this with you because like a couple of other reviewers here, it takes quite a bit to truly impress me at this point in my life. I have to tell you that the "wow factor," for me, is off the charts with this current offering from the Stokes. Now don't get me wrong. I dearly love every one of my field guides, even the old musty ones dating back to the turn of the century which were void of any illustrations and consisted of only rambling post-Victorian text. But for sheer usability this new Stokes ranks right up at the top. But read on..... Now before I go on, the old question of "if you had only one field guide, and only one, which one would you choose - which one is the best?" Oh my! This argument has been going on since as long as I can remember. I have birded with a lot of people from literally all over the world, and when asked that question, I have received dozens upon dozens of answers. Bird field guides are a lot like golf clubs. Everyone has their favorite and folks will go to the matt arguing which is best. When all is said and done though, it all depend upon the individual; what they are use to using, how he perceive birding, what their experience level is, what their dad or mom told them, and on and on and on. From my own experiences and from my own point of view, I would be hard pressed to try to identify a single "best guide." I personally use several of them in the field and even more of them as references. As an example, I grew up using the Peterson guides. I still use them as my primary source. Hey, they are what I am use to. Since those early days though I have added Sibley's guides, and of course Audubon...these are the three guides I carry in the field. I have now added this Stokes to my tote bag; or at least to my stash in my car. The Stokes Filed Guide to the Birds of North America has some of the best photographs of birds I have seen in any guide book. Each bird represented has several shots; perching or standing, flying and of course gender and in most cases, maturity. The photographs are clear and concise and the color is wonderful. Range maps, unlike the Peterson guide, are on the same page as the bird. For "difficult" birds, there are nice little side-bar notes which include identification tips. I personally found the organization of the book, once I use it and got use to it, to be quite workable. The authors have given enough text to allow identification but by necessity have kept the text to a minimum. I personally like this. If I want the life history or life cycle of the book I have plenty of reference books in by library and I have a computer which allows me to do further research once I have identified a given bird. In a field guide I simply do not want a cluttered and detailed text...too much reading in the woods causes a person to miss a lot of birds! Now much as been said and written about the size and weight of this work and rightfully so as a person needs to know what they are getting before they decide to make a purchase, i.e. is it right for me? In my personal case, yes it is right. I do a lot of my birding from fixed positions (I am old and can no longer trek 20 miles a day...bummer) and I also do a lot of "roadside" birding. Yes, I am more stationary now but if you ask me if I would have carried this guide with me when I was younger, my answer would have been yes. Weight did not mean that much to me then as it does now. As it stands, I have been blessed with the ability to take very good field notes. This is not, I can assure you, because I am particularly bright, no - it is because I have been doing it for so long that I was bound to get good at it through sheer repetition. I can use my Peterson and Sibley on difficult birds and record enough data to make a good identification later using my full resources. This book contains a bonus CD of over 600 bird calls our sounds. This is nice and is very useful. In my case it is not as useful as it would be for most folks as I have a tin ear when it comes to music - hey, I have trouble distinguishing between the music of Jimmy Hendrix and a Celtic Flutist...but it is a good CD anyway! This work was a great addition to my library and has been a great help with my birding. What a wonderful resource this book is. This one works for me. Don Blankenship The Ozarks ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The best bird guide 50 years, But For Portability, the iBird2 App is Better *by E***G on February 4, 2011* December 30, 2011: I still have 17 bird guides from Sibley to Nat'l Geographic, and the only one I've been using for 10 months is this one. Yes, I still have a problem that the Western Region is still given "short shrift" - even in their Western Region book - but compared to the other 16, this is by far the best guide with the best/most photographs, and I've now come to understand much more about birding behavior so I can find birds on my own. HOWEVER, my kids gave me a Kindle Fire for my birthday last week, and I found an APP, iBird Pro 2 on Amazon that is, unbelievably, EVEN BETTER THAN this Stokes and it's portable! This does not take away from the work that went into this remarkable Field Guide. But at 3 pounds, "field guide" is really a misnomer. Stokes is really a reference book, and excellent reference book. March 23, 2011: After using the book for a month, there are a couple of disturbing "findings." It may be my imagination, but I think that the Stokes pay more attention to the Eastern North American birds than those west of the Rockies (note: I didn't say "Mississippi"). Two birds which I recently photographed are not represented correctly in this book. The Oak Titmouse is NOT the Common Titmouse, and there should be two separate pages for the Oak and Juniper Titmice. And - so far - they do not present the Common Grackle or Boat-tailed Grackle as living in the West while I have photographed them in the east counties of the San Francisco Bay Area. Now, I'm beginning to wonder what other species got short shrift. Having seen many of the Stokes' TV shows, they do indeed give more emphasis to Eastern birds. I don't blame them or even fault them. If I lived in New Hampshire, the last thing on my mind would be the Acorn Woodpecker or California Quail. But they DO present these birds, and do that well. (I have 24 bird guides - going back to 1964 - and none mentions the red spot on the yellow bib of the female Acorn Woodpecker. At least Stokes give more attention to the yellow bib.) I have accumulated (not consciously collected) 28 books on birds, at least 14 of them "field guides." Well, the Stokes' Birds of North America is too large to really be a field guide unless you have a Range Rover to cover your fields and a Guide to carry this book, but IT IS in the top 3 guides. Being that thorough, however, you will have a 3 pound book (I just weighed it: 3 pounds on the button). Though I rarely leave the west coast any more, I bought this to get a better idea as to ranges and the differences between Western and Eastern North American birds. The Stokes have given us over 700 birds and from three to eight really good photos of each. The more difficult the species is to distinguish from subspecies, the more photographs. So sparrows, for instance, will rate more photos than a Band-tailed Pigeon. There are quite a few of the birds in flight which is also especially helpful with raptors. Each species has notes as to subspecies and hybrids. Now, I know that male mallards will have sex with anything that floats, but I had no idea that there are 15 hybrids! Even the wood duck could be an offshoot of the promiscuous (and ill-mannered I might add) mallard. Most "birders" like Sibley's guide, and I used that for a while for easy identification. However, there are no photographs, just phenomenal drawings. Then I switched to Smithsonian which has great photographs, and pretty good maps as well as an audio CD (as does Stokes)of bird songs. And then I switched to Stokes' Western Region Guide. To be honest, I find all of these too heavy to carry while walking, and I find all software for phones and iPads that I don't have to be less than satisfactory. Much less. Really bad in fact since even the comparisons are poor. But, since I'm only REALLY interested in birds that are either so striking that I won't forget details or birds that I've just photographed and have to download to my PC anyway, this Stokes' book is the ticket to identify the species and learn as much as I want to learn. I probably will never be able to tell the difference between a chipping sparrow and a savanna sparrow, but that's okay. Only the shipping sparrow lives around here. And there are enough critics of my nature photography web site so that somewhere down the line, somebody will tell me where I've misidentified a bird. I'm thankful for that. I'm also very patient and can wait. I was about to write that I really didn't care about the audio CD, just as I didn't care for Smithsonian's. That's not entirely true, and it brings us back to the sparrow. I CAN distinguish differences in bird songs; I just can tell which thrush or sparrow it came from. Around here, sparrows get together for socializing and maybe even a hand of bridge, and they don't mind singing up a storm regardless of the competition with others. The only one I know for sure is the Song Sparrow. So, every once in a while I will put the CD in and see if I can hear the difference between the Golden-crowned and the White-crowned. Sure, so long as I have the CD. But once out in the field... well, let's just say I've never been good with languages. Besides, almost all sparrows have a very sweet song, though none can compete with the Song Sparrow. Would I recommend this book? In a heartbeat. But I'm guess it weighs well over a pound, so keep it home. The only thing I want now is for the Stokes to come out with the same one in hardbound. Note: With Christmas coming up, I will be giving this to several friends who, though members of the local Audubon Society, will find this one of the best REFERENCE books. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that I'd buy a Kindle if this book was available WITH the songs. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Great reference for identification *by M***E on December 6, 2020* I gave this field guide five stars for its species identification information and high quality photos. I highly recommend it to anyone needing help identifying difficult species. I would not recommend it as a "first field guide". There are other field guides with better information on behaviors, habitat, range, and similar species. This information is vital in an initial "carry it out to the field" reference. If you already have a good field guide and find it doesn't have sufficient identification information, this Stokes field guide is an ideal companion reference. Why I bought it - To quote my wife... "You bought another bird book." Yes, I did. It isn't that I needed a better book, I needed a different book that explored species identification at a much greater level of detail than my other field manuals. I also wanted one that wasn't big and heavy. Happily, this is the book. Some background - First, there is no one bird reference that will serve as an one-book reference. It would be too large and heavy to be practical. Different books are ideal for different purposes. I recommend starting with a solid "take to the field" field guide. This guide should be comprehensive but small enough to easily carry. Naturally, more information about each species will make the book larger and heavier. After you have a nation-wide field guide, the next level up is a field guide that covers your region or area. I have several for the eastern and western half of the country, some regional guides, and one local reference. If like me, you are not a bird expert and you need one more reference to be able to identify the more difficult species such as sparrows and hawks, this is the book you need. In summary - The Stokes Field Guide supplies the detailed information that I needed. It provides it with both great information and multiple high quality photos for each species. It is larger than my other field guides, so it stays home more than the others. While, my other field guides have better information on behaviors, habitat, range, and similar species, they don't have sufficient identification information. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.us/products/6031748-little-brown-stokes-field-guide-to-the-birds-of-north](https://www.desertcart.us/products/6031748-little-brown-stokes-field-guide-to-the-birds-of-north) --- *Product available on Desertcart United States of America* *Store origin: US* *Last updated: 2026-07-31*